Missing Children Publication Hub

The publications in this section contain the results of our research as well as curated research on topics and issues relevant to missing children in Europe and the world. Example of the type of research you can find are understanding the causes of the different types of missing children cases in Europe, policy on missing children, search and rescue operations and family support. The menu and submenu options below will help you find what you're looking for.

If you'd like to share relevant research with us, please send the title, a link and description of the research to info@missingchildreneurope.eu.

Living Losses: children alienated from their parents for ten years or more(by Karen Woodall)

Living losses is a project which brings together mothers from across the world to raise awareness of the way in which abduction of a child, relocation and alienation are linked to a pattern of coercive control. Living losses is an arts based project which aims to both raise awareness of the issue of coercive control in post separation family relationships and provide for mothers, the support that they need to cope with the loss of a child through abduction, relocation or alienation. As part of the arts based project, a study is being undertaken of trans- generational family patterns of loss, in which mothers whose children are currently rejecting them, map the patterns of their generational model of relationships to understand the ways in which their own experience of family has interlinked with another to create a situation where a child can be removed from them through coercive control. The purpose of the study is to illuminate the dynamics in family relationships which cause risk to children and a parent and to create a protocol in which such risk is demonstrated. This protocol aims to assist the family courts to make decisions in the best interests of children to offer early intervention and prevention of the removal of a child by one parent acting against the other. Whilst Living losses is a mother focused project, it is recognised that mothers can and do act to remove a child from a father. Lessons learned from the mother focused project will be adapted using gender mainstreaming techniques to ensure that coercive control by men or women, through the use of children, is illuminated after family separation.